Devil Dog's Howl
by bazookapenguin
Summary: The story of an Iwagakure ninja, trying to rediscover his humanity in a world of assassins.


The masked assassin followed in the shadows of the woman. She led the assassin away from her home, where her younger sister slept soundly, and miles into the dark of the forest where not even the midnight moonlight could not reach, where the sounds of battle would be trapped.

"Why are you after me!?" asked the woman, drawing a sword.

"You killed one of my men!" shouted the assassin. He drew a kunai from a small pocket on his protective vest and threw it, but the woman deflected it, sending it twirling into the sky. That provided the assassin with the perfect opportunity to leap meters into the air, catch the kunai, and descent with his weapon aimed at the woman's head. When he fell, the ground cracked and splintered under his and the kunai's newly increased masses, but the woman had leaped back already. She swung her sword laterally an attempt to cleave the assassin's neck, but it only tore off his mask.

She shouted, "Y-you!" She distanced herself in a hurry upon seeing the headband depicting the insignia of the ninja village, Iwagakure.

"The man you killed was one of ours."

The woman argued that, "He didn't wear your symbol!"

"…That doesn't matter now." The assassin threw his kunai once again, and though the woman deflected it again it had served its purpose as a distraction. The assassin had closed the distance allowing him to deliver an uppercut into the woman's gut, lifting her up into the air, followed by a sidekick that sent her flying.

She crashed into a tree thirty meters away, where she left splotches of blood. Quickly standing, she held her sword high, the tip pointed at the assassin as if to stab him. She muttered a chant under her breath, and dashed forward, tearing up the ground as she flew forward. Just as she met the assassin, she thrust her sword forward with enough force to pierce several feet of concrete. But it didn't work. The assassin, his hands now gray and cracked in appearance, had caught the blade, stopping it mere centimeters away from his heart. "Unbelievable," he said, "I thought I was crazy, but it's really you." The woman twisted her sword, freeing it from the assassin's clutches and slashed upward in an attempt to cut the assassin's eye. The assassin, who dodged, said, "Yuria. The Butcher of Kirigakure" The woman tried to jump away again but the assassin grabbed her sword again and struck it with a chop, shattering it like glass. Shards found themselves stuck in the woman's bare flesh, across her torso. "Did you travel halfway across the world to terrorize the people of this country?" The assassin delivered a hook to the woman's face with his stony right hand. It sent her down to the dirt onto her stomach. "You should have just stayed in Kiri!"

She latched onto his leg, spewed blood onto it, twisted it, and brought him to the ground as well. The woman drew a second sword from under her clothes and jumped on the assassin with sword ready to strike. But she stopped, held the wounds where the shrapnel from her sword had hit her, and removed herself from the assassin's chest.

"W-what? What are you doing?" asked the assassin.

The woman dropped her sword and held her hands up in the air as a sign of surrender. "I don't want to kill you. I didn't want to kill anyone."

The assassin, still in disbelief, scampered away from her, stood and drew another weapon. But he still asked, "Then why did you kill my subordinate?"

The woman, now holding her shrapnel wounds, answered, "He got drunk, he attacked my sister. I just… It was an accident."

A silent tension filled the air, but the assassin broke it by going to the woman's side. To the surprise of both, he dropped his weapon. "This is the second time you've spared me," said the assassin. He eyed her wounds and the blood that was slowly flowing from them. With the adrenaline wearing off, the woman's breathing had become heavier and slower and her grip had been loosening. "Do you remember me?" asked the assassin.

She muttered, "Everyone knows about you."

"No, not that… It was a long time ago. We were still pretty young," said the assassin. "I was stranded out in the Kiri sea after a failed mission and then you came along and saved me, us. You knew we were enemy ninja, and you still spared us, no, you saved us."

"Oh," said Yuria.

The assassin chuckled slightly at her poor memory. "When I started hearing people call you the Butcher of Kirigakure I was pretty surprised. And the things that you did… I thought they had the wrong person for the bingo book picture. I just couldn't believe it. Until we fought."

"It was in the Land of Hot Water right? I remember," said Yuria, "You were strong."

The assassin chuckled again and then frowned. "Sorry, I can't let you go." The woman's eyes shot open in surprise. It happened instantaneously. The back of her neck had been impaled by a kunai. It entered at an upward slant, killing her instantly. The assassin walked up to her limp corpse and closed her teary eyes. He wondered why she had used a regular sword instead of her signature weapon and why she decided to spare him at such a critical moment, not that it would have mattered. As he departed, he couldn't keep help but look back.


End file.
